by Megyn Ward
Jane’s face folds into a scowl. “But she invited you,” she says, obviously confused. “She asked you to come, right?”
“Yeah, she did—but that didn’t matter,” I tell her with a shrug. “Everyone heard what she said and it got me tossed out of the bar.” Remembering it still stings, like when you get punched in the face and keep licking at your split lip. “I went back to the hotel alone and passed out. When I woke up the next morning, Jenny was still gone. Because I really didn’t want to be there when she got back, I got called the airline and got my flight bumped up to leave a day early, threw my shit in my backpack, checked out, and left for the airport. I was just getting ready to board the plane when the cops stopped me. Bouncer at the bar found Jenny’s purse in the parking lot. Her wallet was gone but her phone was left behind. Going through the purse he found one of those photo strips you take in an automatic booth, pictures that her and some girlfriends had taken earlier in the trip. He recognized her as the girl who needed saving from some weird, creepy stalker the night before and he called the police. Police showed up to take a report and he shows them the security footage of us fighting. Police, erring on the side of caution, track the credit card I used to run a tab and find where I’m staying. When they get to the hotel to question me, they find out I checked out early and assume the worst.”
Jane stares at me for a few seconds. “That you hurt her?” she says, face scrunched up in a scowl. “That’s a pretty broad jump, isn’t it?”
“No.” I shake my head, immediately disagreeing with her. “She was missing and they did everything right. Everything they should have—everything I’d have expected them to do if I’d been on the outside looking in.”
She shakes her head at me, fast and tight but doesn’t argue because she knows I’m right but doesn’t want to admit it. “What about the other guy? The one she wanted to leave with? Did they bring him in for questioning?”
I remember what she said to me Thursday night when I brought up Jenny—I don’t know what happened to that girl, but I know you didn’t do it—and I feel another knot loosen.
“No one remembered him but me.” I think about it, sitting in the detainment room at the airport while the cops grill me about Jenny. What happened to her? Where did she go? If she actually invited me to Myrtle Beach, why would she claim I was stalking her? If this other guy I kept trying to tell them about really existed, why did no one remember him but me? How come they never caught him with her on any of the security cameras? “After a few hours of questioning, they finally managed to dig up my juvenile record. It’s sealed, so they threated to get a court order to unseal it—” I remember the sheer fucking terror I felt at the thought of them finding out who I really was. Who my father was. What would happen if they found out. How out of control it would all get, in the blink of an eye. “that’s when I finally asked for a lawyer.”
“You called your brother?” It’s an obvious assumption, but that’s not what happened.
“No, I couldn’t call Tob. I couldn’t risk pulling him into a potential shitstorm—not unless I absolutely had to.” I shake my head and look down at my hands. “I called Conner. He was one of my professors at MIT and I remembered someone telling me he had a law degree. I called him and told him what happened. That Jenny was missing and they thought I did something to her. He just said, well—did you? When I told him no he said okay—don’t say another fucking word until I get there.” Looking up from my hands, I shrug. “He waltzed in a few hours later wearing jeans, a grease-stained T-shirt, and a pair of scuffed boots. Asked them if I was under arrest or if they even had any real evidence that Jenny was missing besides her purse, dumped in a parking lot. When they admitted they didn’t and that I wasn’t, he flipped them the bird and dragged me out of there.”
Forty-Three
Jane
I remember the conversation I had with Conner a few nights ago. How he asked me point blank if I believed that Logan hurt Jenny Wainwright. The answer was no.
It’s still no.
I don’t know how this story is going to end but I do know that Logan is innocent. That whatever happened to her had nothing to do with him. Instead of saying so, I sit quietly and wait for him to finish.
“When we got back to Boston, he took me to his parents’ house and they let me crash there while he went back to South Carolina to figured things out.” He gives me a smile. “I don’t know if you’ve met them but they’re pretty amazing people—the just took me in, let me stay, no questions asked.” The smile fades away and he sighs. “It took all of ten minutes for the local news to catch wind of Jenny’s disappearance and my connection to it. MIT was swarmed with reporters. Jenny’s parents were holding press conferences in their front yard. Her friends were giving interviews, telling anyone who would listen that I did something to her—that they just knew it—even the ones who’d never even met me. Despite my best efforts, Tob got blindsided. As soon as the press found out we were connected they started foaming at the mouth—the Natalee Halloway case was still pretty fresh and people were drawing parallels. Young, beautiful girl on vacation. A privileged creep who by all accounts was stalking her. It took a few days but, the cops got a search warrant for my apartment. Before they got there, Jase went in and did a sweep. Cleaned out my mailbox—” He smiles again but this one is brittle, bitter around its edges. “Not sure what he thought he was going to find but…” He shrugs. “Mixed in with the mail was a plain white envelope.”
“Your father.” Saying it hurts my stomach. Seeing the look on his face when I do, hurts my heart.
“Yeah.” He nods and looks away, fixing his gaze on something in the kitchen, just past my shoulder. “Inside it was a piece of paper that said I’m proud of you son, I knew you could do it.” Reaching up, he swipes a rough hand over his face, letting out a soft bark of laughter. “He thought I’d done something to her and he was proud of me.”
“That’s how he found you?”
He nods again and drops his hand. “After he learned what I changed my name to, keeping track of me was fairly easy. He has… followers. People he’s conned into believing he’s innocent. People who know what he really is and admire him for it. Want to be like him—they do his dirty work. Track me. Find me. Deliver his letters.”
“That’s why you dropped out of MIT—because your father found you?”
“I dropped out of MIT for a lot of reasons but, yeah—he was at the top of the list. I left Boston. Bounced around. Worked shit jobs. Con does what he can to keep me off the radar but I still have to use my social security number if I want to work. Still have to use my name when I sign rental agreements or sign up for utilities. When I moved back, Con found a guy willing to rent me an apartment for cash without a lease, and he got me hired on at the bar. It was supposed to be under the table but…”
I remember how long it took me to get his employment information when he started tending bar at Gilroy’s. That it was Con who’d brought it into the office. That he’d seemed pretty pissed about it.
Now I know why.
“Anyway, shit was ramping up. National news outlets started sniffing around. Nancy Grace called Tob on his personal cell, demanding an interview.” He laughs a little at that. “Just when things were getting ready to go from bad to worse and it looked like everyone was going to find out the truth about me, Conner came home—dragging Jenny behind him.”
It takes me a few seconds to process what he said. “Wait—Conner Gilroy found her?” I come up off the arm of the couch I’m perched on, my heart hammering in my chest. “Alive?”
“Yup.” He finally moves away from where he’s standing by the windows. “She’d decided to extend her spring break and road trip to Daytona with the guy she met that night at the bar.” He walks past me and into the kitchen and I turn to watch while he opens one of the cabinets and pulls out a glass. “Dumped her purse and phone because she knew her parents would be pissed when they found out she blew off school to party but kept her wallet and eve
rything in it because she wasn’t completely stupid.” Sticking the glass under the tap, he fills it with water. “They partied for a few days before he talked her into making a run for Mexico. They ran out of cash about halfway there and had to use one of her credit cards for gas. Con caught up with them in Mississippi—she’s lucky he did too. The guy turned out to be pretty bad news. If he’d gotten her to Mexico, chances are she’d never been heard from again.” He turns toward the sink for a refill. No mention of his own life. How her disappearance would’ve affected him. What it could’ve potentially cost him. “As soon as I was cleared, I packed my shit and left Boston.”
I sit here for a few minutes, trying to digest everything he’s told me—that Jenny Wainwright is alive and well after nearly destroying his life, just so she could party—while he calmly drinks his water, and I want to scream. Cry. I want to hit something.
Her.
I want to hit her.
Sinking back down to my perch, I feel my shoulders slump because I know none of this matters. All these big revelations and insights into his past, everything I didn’t know, won’t change anything.
Because I know why he’s telling me.
Logan is still going to end things between us.
“You’re leaving again, aren’t you?” The words nearly choke me, so big I can barely get them out. “Because of me—you’re going to leave again because of me.”
He stares into his glass for a few seconds before setting it down with a sigh. “Jane—”
“It’s okay.” I stand again, shaking my head a mile a minute because it’s not okay. None of this is okay. “I won’t freak out, just—” I tilt my head back and hold my breath in an effort to beat back the tears, prickling against the backs of my eyelids. “Just tell me. Just—”
Before I can say anything else, I feel a shadow pass over my face and I tip my chin down to find Logan standing in front of me. “No,” he says softly, reaching up to take my face in his hands. “Not because of you.”
Even though it’s not really an answer to my question, I can hear it in his voice.
Logan is still going to leave.
“When?” I can hear it in my voice. Panic. Desperation. Because I’ve been looking for Logan since I was fourteen, waiting for him, even if I didn’t know it, and the thought of losing him again, so soon after finding him is enough to send me into a tailspin. “Just tell me when—when are you—”
“As soon as Tob comes home.” He gives me another helpless look. “I promised him I’d keep an eye on Silver and the kids while he’s gone so I can’t leave until…” He sighs, the helpless look on his face deepening into one of confusion. “Jane—”
“I get jealous too,” I tell him, grasping at straws, trying to find something—anything—that might make him change his mind. “When I was in line to get into Gilroy’s Thursday night, the woman in front of me was talking to her friend and she said she was into you. That she thought about fucking you and I got so jealous, I wanted to snatch her up by her hair and—”
He kisses me, nothing more than a soft press of his lips against mine but it’s enough to make me forget what I’m saying. He pulls his mouth away from mine and looks down at me, one of his hands slipping lower, its thumb brushing against the bite marks on my neck. “Promise me…” he says, his voice low and rough, brow furrowed like he’s prepared to instantly reject my answer. “Promise me I didn’t hurt you.”
“You didn’t.” I lean toward him, pressing into the hand he has wrapped around my neck. “You’d never hurt me.”
Brow still furrowed, he makes that sound again, the one that tells me he thinks I’m wrong, his gaze dropping to his hand. “And that if I do or if I do or say anything that scares you or makes you uncomfortable, you’ll leave. No explanation. Not discussion—you’ll just get up and leave.” Logan looks up and pins his gaze to mine. “Promise me.”
“I promise.” I nod, the movement of it stiff and choppy. Heart breaking and swelling all at once because I know he’s going to give in and let me stay but I also know that it won’t last. That what he’s offering me is a just reprieve. Nothing I said has changed his mind and once Logan leaves, it’ll be for good. “But you have to promise not to treat me like I’m made of glass.”
He stares at me for a few seconds, frowning like he’s about to tell me no. Like it’s a deal breaker. Like he has every intention of sitting me in the nearest chair and staring at me for the next several hours. No touching. Not even breathing.
“Logan…” you’re leaving. I shake my head because I can’t make myself say it out loud but I don’t have to. He understands what I’m trying to say.
“Okay.” Swallowing hard, he nods his head and sighs. “Okay. I promise…” Logan drops his hand away from my neck to run it over my shoulder and down my arm to lace his fingers through mine. “Let’s go back to bed.”
Forty-Four
Logan
I know Jane thinks I did it for her. That I changed my mind about her staying because I didn’t want to upset her or maybe even because I felt sorry for her, but she’s wrong.
That’s not why I did it.
I did it because I’m selfish.
Because even as I was telling her to leave, I knew if she tried, she wouldn’t even make it to the door before I chased her down and dragged her back in.
Because somewhere in the middle of all of this, I fell in love with her.
Real love. The kind I’ve avoided feeling my entire life. The kind of love that makes me feel crazy. Dangerous. Like I’d be willing to do anything, just to keep her.
Even hurt her if I have to.
Because that’s what I’m doing—laying here in the dark with her, her legs tangled between mine. Her arm flung over my chest. Soft body tucked into mine while I stroke my fingers through her hair, both of us ignoring the insistent push of the sun against the room’s automatic blinds.
I’m hurting her and I can’t seem to stop.
That’s how I know I have to leave.
As soon as Tob gets home, I’m going to give my notice at the bar, pack my shit and go.
I have to.
I know I have to because leaving is the last thing I want to do.
“Jane...”
“Hmmm?” Her half-asleep hum skates across my chest and her fingers flex against my ribs in response.
I love you.
Instead of saying it out loud, I do something worse.
I show her.
Lifting my shoulders from the bed, I roll into her, over her and she sighs in what feels like relief when I kiss her, the soft, languid tangle of her tongue against mine, the slow coast of her hands down the length of my back as my hips find their home between her thighs. Her fingers gripping my ass, pulling me closer. Another sigh, this one ragged and broken against my neck as I stroke into her, slow and deep, again and again, while my mouth and hands, fingers and tongue, find every soft, secret part of her and commits the feel and taste of them to memory.
I fuck her until it isn’t just fucking anymore. Until it’s something else. I can feel her, working herself under my skin. Wrapping herself around my bones. Sinking and seeping into every part of me.
Every pore.
Until every part of everything that I am, belongs to her.
When I wake up, it’s dark outside, the insistent push of the sun, leaking through the blinds has faded into black and I’m alone.
Jane is gone.
Not in the bathroom or getting a drink of water from the kitchen gone.
She’s gone.
As soon as it registers, every instinct I have—every wrong, selfish, dangerous thing inside me, starts screaming at me to go get her. Drag her back. Lock her up and make her stay. I can see myself doing it.
I want to do it.
I want Jane more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my entire life. I want her here. I want her with me. All those instincts are screaming at me, telling me that with me is where she belongs.
But those instincts
are lying.
They’re the part of me that belongs to my father. The same instincts that he used to justify what he did. Convince himself that the women he abducted were his to take. That they belonged to him. That hurting them was justified. That killing them was fun.
So, instead of giving into them, I let her go.
Because Jane did what I asked her to do.
I hurt her—I hurt us both—and she left.
Exactly like she promised.
I wake up again—this time to banging on my front door, loud and insistent. Hearing it, I sit up and look around the room.
The sun is back.
Looking at the nightstand, I remember that I unplugged the clock days ago because I wanted to stop time and if I wasn’t going to be able to stop it, I was sure as fuck going to ignore it.
Getting out of bed I pull on the same pair of shorts I’ve been wearing since I unplugged the clock and amble my way down the hall. Whoever it is at my door isn’t giving up. They aren’t going away. Half hoping it’s Jane, I open the door without checking the peephole.
It isn’t Jane.
It’s Declan Gilroy.
And he looks pissed.
“Want to tell me what the fuck you did to her?” He growls at me, pushing past me and into my apartment like he owns the place and I let him, because there’s only one her he could be talking about. This is about Jane and whatever punishment he’s come to serve me over that way I treated her, is far less than I deserve.
